


All summer long

by KeepGoing



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Feelings, Ian POV, Ian just really loves Mickey ok?, M/M, That Summer, happily ever after even after all they have been through, ian remembers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:47:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25232635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KeepGoing/pseuds/KeepGoing
Summary: Ian remembers the best summer of his life.
Relationships: Ian Gallagher/Mickey Milkovich
Comments: 7
Kudos: 89





	All summer long

  
  
  
Looking back, years later, Ian will still say that summer was the best one of his life. 

Where he spent his days in air conditioning staring at a boy with threats tattooed on his knuckles but at night, those same hands that housed such harsh words, would leave the most delicate of touches across Ian’s skin. He got to stare at this boy everyday from across a store; over watermelons and canned goods; and when their eyes would meet, even for the briefest of seconds, Ian swears it was just as good as the sex at night, maybe better. 

A boy who took up all the air in the room without even trying. He commanded attention without even wanting it, but always taking it like it was owed to him; like a hand dealt to him in the game of life. The boy took; push and pull; taking from Ian so much of himself, and giving little back, but what he did were pieces of himself so important, Ian wishes he had seen it sooner. 

He got to share a small space, almost everyday that summer, with a boy who would change everything about him. His outlook on the world. The way he felt about family. The way he viewed himself and his sexuality. This boy left fingerprints on his skin and mind and emotions; fingerprints that were permanent. Unable to be erased, never fading, for years to come. 

This boy who spewed hateful words from his mouth but would then press that mouth to Ian’s neck in such a way that it would make him think maybe, just maybe, this was the thing everyone was searching for. That feeling of fitting together so beautifully, so perfectly, that everything and everyone who came before, were from a totally different life. A life without his breath against his shoulder. His smell; that strong scent of cigarettes and sweat and Irish spring soap. Ian’s clothes would always have a reminder on them; after nights spent in secluded spots where it was just him and this boy who came in like a hurricane and left Ian confused and dishelved and unable to move on from the destruction. 

Ian learned more in that summer than he ever did any of his classes. This boy taught him how to live, really live. He taught Ian to be cautious but to always take a chance. How to laugh at yourself, even in times when it was hardest to smile. He taught Ian about sacrifice and real pain. He taught him forgiveness and how to let go even when it hurt the most. Ian knows that through everything, all the bad shit that came after that summer; years and years of just pile after pile of shit; that he never would have survived it if not for that boy. If not for the way he stayed with him, deep under his skin, even years after the boy was gone. 

Ian spent that summer riding a high he never felt since. The high of knowing someone like Mickey wanted him, needed him, even though he never said. Someone like Mickey who was loyal and strong and brave in ways Ian never was and would never be. 

It was the best time in Ian’s life and he thought nothing could ever be any better and it would last forever. He spent summer days with 3 words on the tip of his tongue; always threatening to slide off during late nights when he was deep inside Mickey and he felt like they were one person. One soul. One heart. Like the hearts he doodled in the white parts of the magazines he pretended to read while he was attempting to work but couldn’t tear his eyes away from the most beautiful boy he’d ever seen. 

Summer nights were spent on beer and whiskey straight from the bottle. Long hot nights swirled with different drugs Mickey brought from God knows where and they experimented together; always together. Some made them sleep until the hot summer sun woke them up disoriented and confused. Some made them laugh and play like two kids with no care in the world. Some made them talk all night about opinions and theories on the world and Ian remembers thinking how fucking smart Mickey was and sad that no one really knew but him. And some drugs made them fuck, slow and feverishly, until their bones ached and bodies shook for hours after. All of them were good in Ian’s opinion, because they were all with Mickey. 

Everything was Mickey that summer. His body, his thoughts, his happiness, his sadness. Confusion, fear, smiles and screams. Blood and spit. Lips and fists. Guns and cocks. All of it, just Mickey. 

Ian looks back on that summer, even though it all went to hell sooner than later, and knows it was the summer that shaped him. It was his stepping stone, his coming of age season. It’s when he found love, in the strangest of places. Deep in the heart of a misunderstood abused boy too scared to be who he really was. Ian and Mickey were free that summer; riding the warmth of the sun through a town that destroyed everyone in it, but they swore it would never do it to them. In the end it wasn’t the town, just themselves, that destroyed it; a product of their environment at its finest. They were destroyed by fathers who never deserved that word and diseases passed on from absent mothers. All that they were, all they built, all they were meant to be blew away when the fall leaves started to fall and by the time the snow came there was nothing left of that summer that Ian once said he hoped would never end. Mickey hadn’t agreed that night, just pressed his mouth hard against Ian’s neck but Ian knew he felt it too. 

You can’t fake that. 

Ian thought of that summer a lot. He thought about it for years after it was over. On the first days when the temperature would hit 80 and the city got that feeling in the air and Ian would just instantly remember. Remember him. 

And he still remembers it now, with Mickey beside him on the warm grass of the field; the only light coming from the scattered stars and the red of his lit cigarette in between his lips. He remembers it as the metal on his finger hits Mickey’s as they pass the cigarette back and forth. He remembers when he slips and can’t get out of bed. He remembers when they are screaming at each other and pushing and pulling, still, after all these years. He remembers when Mickey curls up behind him later that night, when they’ve calmed down, and hears him whisper in Ian’s ear all the things he longed for Mickey to say that summer. 

But it doesn’t matter that Mickey didn’t say it then. It doesn’t matter that they’ve been shattered apart and glued back together so many times since then. Ian would relive every second of it, the good and the bad, the sickness and the health, all of it just to have this moment right here with Mickey. Their pinkies curled together on the grass. The warm air from the new summer surrounding their bodies. The even breathing from Mickey’s chest setting a rhythm to the night. The silence that used to scare him, but now is welcomed because Mickey is his. It’s not just a piece of paper between them. It’s the past. The future. This moment right here. 

It’s that best summer of Ian’s life.


End file.
